27 January 2013 6:21 PM

A Lib Dem MP gives voice to Britain's national sickness

People have been expressing severe shock and revulsion at
the ugly remarks by Lib Dem MP David Ward about Israel and the Holocaust.

As The
Commentator reported, to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day Ward said the
following:

‘Having visited Auschwitz twice – once with my family
and once with local schools – I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered
unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years
of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in
the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank
and Gaza.’

He dug himself further into the hole with this
interview with Sky News. As far as he is concerned, it appears he believes
he has said nothing wrong.

The Liberal Democrat party has denounced his statements
as ‘unacceptable’ and is reportedly considering stripping him of the Lib Dem
whip. Such an action would nevertheless be merely cosmetic. For these ‘unacceptable’
attitudes are widespread in the Liberal Democrat party -- as illustrated by
both the report on the furore and readers’ comments here on Liberal
Democrat Voice.

Moreover, much of the shock and outrage has missed the
point. Ward’s offence, it would appear, was to have repeatedly blamed ‘the Jews’
for failing to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and inflicting atrocities
upon the Palestinians. Apparently – as even the Sky interviewer seemed at one
point to imply-- if he had blamed ‘the Israelis’ there wouldn’t have been a
problem.

This is not just to fail to grasp the real obscenity of
Ward’s comments, but to reveal that many of those expressing revulsion at his
comments actually suffer from the same prejudice.

For the really terrible thing here is not the grotesque
misuse of the Holocaust, nor the vicious suggestion that ‘the Jews’ are guilty
of behaviour that is somehow analogous to the Nazi genocide inflicted upon
them, nor even the sickening insult that they have to ‘learn the lessons’ of their
own suffering.

No, the true venom of these remarks is the way they reverse
the position of today’s Jewish victims – the Israeli survivors of the Holocaust
and their children and grandchildren -- and their current would-be exterminators
– the descendants of Hitler’s Nazi collaborators in Palestine during the Holocaust.

For the fact is that Israel is not trying to exterminate
the Palestinians – indeed how could this possibly be the case, since the
Palestinian population has more than quadrupled since the rebirth of Israel in
1948. Nor are the Israelis oppressing the Palestinians, who have benefited from
some of the highest rises in GDP and lowest child mortality ratios in the Middle
East.

Nor are the Israelis behaving inhumanely; it is the Palestinians
who are committing crimes against humanity by targeting Israeli innocents for
mass murder without remission, both from Gaza and from the West Bank. It
is the Palestinians, in the West Bank as well as Gaza, who are
brainwashed from the cradle to hate Jews and to believe that murdering Israelis
is their highest glory. Which they have been doing in Israel and before that in
Palestine for more than a century – despite the fact that, as the international
community laid down in binding treaty in 1920, the Jews alone had the inalienable
and historic right to settle throughout Palestine, including not just present-day
Israel but also the West Bank and Gaza.

Moreover, while the Jews accepted proposals for a Palestinian
state first made in the 1930s and then in 1947, and while the Israelis offered them
more than 95 per cent of the possible land for a state in 2000 and 2008, the
Palestinians responded merely by murdering more Jews.

Despite all this, Israel behaves towards its genocidal
Palestinian attackers with a humanity that is seen in no other conflict on the
planet. Despite the rocket attacks and constant smuggling of ever more fearsome
weapons to be aimed at its civilians, it allows humanitarian supplies into
Gaza; despite the constant plotting in the West Bank to kill more Israelis, it allows
Palestinians to work in Israel, and treats Palestinians from both the West Bank
and Gaza alongside Israelis in Israeli hospitals. Yes of course there is
Palestinian hardship caused by the checkpoints and security barrier. But the
only reason these exist is to prevent Palestinians killing yet more Israelis.
If the Palestinians and their Arab and Iranian backers stopped trying to wipe
Israel off the map, there would be peace tomorrow.

The really appalling thing about Ward’s remarks is his hijacking
of the Holocaust to reverse the position of Arab aggressors and their Jewish victims.
But he also goes further than accusing
Israel of such crimes in the West Bank and Gaza. He accuses it of

‘Inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State
of Israel.’

He thus appears to be accusing Israel of committing
atrocities against its own Arab citizens. But this is just plain hallucinatory.
There is nothing that could possibly be considered to be such. Arab Israelis
have full civil rights in Israel; they serve as MPs, judges, even serve in the
army; every day Arab Israelis peacefully go about their everyday lives.

The really chilling thing is this. Leave aside Ward’s
particular offensiveness and idiocies. The insane belief that Israel is trying
to wipe out the Palestinians or at the very least that it behaves savagely
towards them, subjects them to ‘apartheid’ and ensures through its behaviour that
there is no peace in the Middle East is now common currency in British progressive
circles. While most would not use the Holocaust analogy and are careful to damn
Israelis rather than ‘the Jews’, the entirely false belief that the Israelis
have supplanted the indigenous people of Palestine and towards whom they are now
behaving in an unconscionable way is now the default position amongst liberals
and the left, and has also made serious inroads amongst the more isolationist
and ignorant British conservatives.

The belief that, in Israel, the victims of one of the
greatest crimes against humanity are themselves now guilty of crimes against
humanity is the collective libel that has become the default position amongst
the British intelligentsia. And as Ward suggested in his remarks on Sky, only those
Jews who themselves endorse this libel by denouncing Israel are to be
considered free of this taint. British Jews who support Israel and try to
counter these Big Lies are quite simply treated as pariahs by baying mobs whose
obsession with Israel has brought about nothing less than a mass derangement in
British public debate.

The full, monstrous obscenity of both Ward’s remarks
and the widespread British attitude to which he has given voice is no less than
this: accusing the people who were the victims of genocide entirely falsely of
committing crimes against humanity -- simply because they are trying to defend themselves
from being wiped out again by those for whom the Holocaust is unfinished business.
Self-defence against extermination is now considered a crime against humanity.

David Ward may have been particularly clumsy – but he
has merely given voice to Britain’s national sickness and shame.

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."As for the 800,000 palestinian refugees "

You can read the verbatim of the arab radio broadcasts from the time advising all arabs to temporarily evacuate as they were going to conduct a scorched earth policy against the Jews, they expected it to be a walk over.

"Perhaps she fails to notice it because there weren't 100,000 Palestinians massacred in 1948. Various accounts put the number at closer to two orders of magnitude lower (closer to 1,000). "

I read somewhere it was the Israeli forces, the Stern gang I think? who first used loudspeakers on their jeeps before entering an arab village to warn all non combatants to stay inside, the problem with this is you lose the element of surprise. Alot of the problems was they were fighting men in civilian clothing who were intentionally mixing with non combatants, I think one of the worst massacres was when arabs dressed up in womens Islamic attire with hidden m machine guns, the problem with this is it caused panic amongst Jewish soldiers who then ended up killing civilians. It should be remembered their were some pretty shocking massacres on the arab side as well, one I remember, I forget where, when dozens of doctors and nurses were killed who were on their way to treat arabs as well as Jews.

Hello Nick, your 100,000 massacred is in fact 107, still not acceptable and Ben Gurion apologised in writing to King Abdullah of Jordan. As for the 800,000 palestinian refugees you conveniently forget the 870,000 jewish refugees from Arab countries. This may be because Israel assimilated it's refugees whilst the Arab countries have kept there refugees as refugees making no attempt to assimilate them into arab society. My grandparents died at Auschwitz and your idea we should pay less attention to the holocaust are totally unacceptable especially given views like yours!

Matthew is right in a way - but not the British "people" - the British (anti-Semitic) elite during and after the First World War. They encouraged the Zionists into Palestine for their own cynical reasons (and the Zionists of course pretended to take them at their word for their own purposes). - And then when the British found the Zionists' purposes conflict with their own, the French stepped in to facilitate the Zionist terrorist campaign against the British. And then... By the way, after all her comments about Hamas and Fatah as terrorists, how does Melanie Phillips think the British should have dealt with the Zionist terrorists? - And, again, on the subject of the Holocaust, are Ben Gurion's behaviour and comments during the 1930s and during the war, (which appear to be representative of the Zionist stance), familiar to Melanie Phillips? - And still this deliberate conflation of "Jewish" and "Israeli", between Judaism and Zionism, and the Holocaust and Zionism - permitted to Zionists but apparently not to their opponents...

"... as the international community laid down in binding treaty in 1920, the Jews alone had the inalienable and historic right to settle throughout Palestine, including not just present-day Israel but also the West Bank and Gaza."

Even if this was written in a treaty, doesn't make it right. In 1900 the Jewish population of the whole of Palestine was about 8%, out of an Arab population of half a million. The state of Israel is an artificially created state that has caused nothing but trouble in the region.

Can I suggest to D. Stevens, Lee B. and the others that they follow the advice given earlier to Melanie Philips. By all means read the Israeli version of history and the Israeli government's propaganda about its actions - but, if you want to arrive at a more accurate picture, read also what those on the other side have to say - and also what those attempting a scholarly balance conclude after studying the available evidence. You will find that the version you share with her does not stand up and cannot justify the state of Israel's behaviour since 1948 nor the Zionists' before 1948. - If this conflict is to be resolved it requires Israel to be more honest - and more moderate in its demands - and to accept that it has no right of any sort, legal, or religious, or historical to oppress the rest of the population of Israel/Palestine, who currently number as many millions as do the Israeli Jews and whose population growth is exceeded only by that of Orthodox Israeli Jews. - A resolution has long been possible and has been spurned by Israel which has preferred to continue the annexations begun in 1947 - two states where the one offered the "Arabs" is not a cluster of ghettoes isolated from each other - perhaps eventually two states in confederation with a common economy as envisaged by the British imperialists and the UN (which the Zionists "accepted" by the way only if the "Arabs" rejected it and only if it did not restrict their territorial demands for their new state of Israel, which they indicated included at least all it is currently annexing - ie they didn't accept it, contrary to myth) Such a resolution is certainly unjust to the Palestinians, and is not something any people would willingly have accepted - but it is the only possibility now that can accommodate the rights of both Israeli citizens and Palestinians (to some extent at least, and so long as Israel cooperates economically).

"Miss Phillips refuses to accept the slaughter/massacre of over 100000 Palestinians in 1948 with the full knowledge and support of Ben Gurion and subsequent Israeli Prime Ministers and Presidents, some of whom were complicit in the slaughter. This is fact but one she appears not to notice."

Perhaps she fails to notice it because there weren't 100,000 Palestinians massacred in 1948. Various accounts put the number at closer to two orders of magnitude lower (closer to 1,000). You've massively over-inflated the numbers, and ignored the fact that after the UN mandated establishment of the Israeli state, the violence in the early months of the war was initiated by the area's Arabs, causing as many as 1,000 Israeli deaths by the end of March 1948.

Nick, you cannot credibly accuse the author of one-sided and 'shrill' views, while in the same comment posting wildly exaggerated numbers to support one-sided views. . .simply from the other side of the argument.

Excellent, cogent article. The Brits are hopeless infected, as is the rest of Europe. However, you should not be using terms as "Palestinians" and "West Bank". They are "Palestinian Arabs" (the Jews were the original "Palestinians" and no Arab before 1948 would ever have wanted to be referred to that). "West Bank" is an invented term, when Jordan illegally occupied the territory from 1948-67 -- by the way, if it was so important to establish another Arab state there, why didn't they ? That area is rightfully called "Judea and Samaria" which existed for thousands of years prior to 1948, and in fact is referred to as such in the UN Partition Plan documents. If that is the "West Bank", then Jordan is the "East Bank" since this was the territory designated as the homeland for the Jews in the Palestine Mandate originally to. Don't be lazy with the language. You forfeit our history when you forfeit the language.

gergedavisonpaley. Oh please spare me the dispossed/occupired people mantra so loved by the left wing and the liberals. israel and greater Israel is the Jewish homeland, historically and more importantly spiritually. And as for Britains record towards the Jews, particularly those it turned away prior to and during WW2 to be sent to the death camps; disgraceful and nothing to trumpet with pride. Don't you people read the historical record whether it be the words and actions of Yasser Arafat or Hamas, a recognised terrorist organisation, that calls for the anihilation of all Jews.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Your crimes against the Jews did not begin today or last month. At the end of WWII you behaved like the amalek of the bible, who ruthlessly attacked the Jews as they fled Egypt’s bondage. You attacked the Jews as they fled the horror of Hitler’s Europe, you torpedoed their escape ships, you put them in your own concentration camps, those that did make it to the promised land were beaten and tortured and hung . Your foreign minister, while begging for US aid to rebuild your country, told the Jews to stop complaining and go back to live with the monsters who tried to kill them off. You arrayed your own forces and allied with the Arabs as they attacked the fledgling state of Israel. Any Israeli or Jew would be a fool to think that anything emanating from the UK is fair or even-handed, it is just more of the same from the modern day amalek

I fully agree with Ewan.
There is much national sickness in Britain, and to our shame, but I'm puzzled that you could relate any of it to anti-semitism. If you are referring to external criticism of Israeli behaviour towards Palestinians then you must also include the UN in your diagnosis who are becoming a gathering support group expressing similar sympathy for the plight of these disposessed people.
Britain was the first to react to the atrocities of the Nazi regime towards Jews, providing sanctuary, support and ,above all, enabled their claims to the Holy Land. Jews continue to reside here as citizens in vast numbers and in safety so why , Melanie Phillips, do you claim otherwise and conjure us up as a 'nation of hate' towards the Jewish communities?

An excellent article. The British elite has had a love affair with Islamic fascism ever since they discovered that Islamists could be used against the more cultured and freedom-loving Hindus in colonial India. I suspect majority British hatred of Israel stems from envy - that their former colony could have advanced so rapidly once they won their freedom from the British. I have noticed that (with some notable exceptions) the Western press is always so kind to Islamists - whether they are in Pakistan, or Egypt, or Gaza. But if anything goes wrong in more civilized nations like Israel, Japan, or rapidly developing India, they can be quite vicious. Glad to see that there are some brave truth-tellers like Ms Philips. Thank you!

Don't tar everyone with the same brush Melanie. I agree with you're whole article and I'm sure many people would. I agree that in so called progressive circles Israel is regarded as the enemy but, you go to far to say ' he has merely given voice to Britain’s national sickness and shame'. That's just as much a slur on our nation. We're not all slavering anti-semites!

It has been pointed out to you many times that your version of history and current events does not bear scrutiny. If unblinkered, even a cursory look at the public record and scholarly research will show you that what you say is false. That you repeat it yet again is an act of intellectual bad faith.

Mr. Ward's comments are without doubt offensive. They are not a symptom of any national "sickness" or "shame". He speaks only for himself. In many column inches over many years you have failed to produce any credible evidence for this national "sickness". You should draw the inference the evidence suggests - it is an ideological figment that helps persuade you of Israel's victimhood (it takes a mighty effort to sustain belief in nonsense).

Do the work necessary for a rational and historically informed defence of Israel. Support those who would like Israel to act less like its sponsor and guarantor, the US, and more like a civilised defender of its interests, which it has long had the capability and opportunity to be.

Without wishing to comment on Ward's remarks apart from saying that they were ill-timed, Miss Phillips refuses to accept the slaughter/massacre of over 100000 Palestinians in 1948 with the full knowledge and support of Ben Gurion and subsequent Israeli Prime Ministers and Presidents, some of whom were complicit in the slaughter. This is fact but one she appears not to notice.
Then there were the 800000 refugees who were driven out of their homeland. NOTHING excuses the slaughter of innocents of course, but her one-sided and increasingly shrill views weaken her arguments and my respect for her as a commentator. I also feel that every year the Holocaust seems to play a bigger part in remembrance services. Surely it is time for it to be respectfully allowed to remain in a more distant part of one's memories, albeit it a respectful one?

It's amazing to me how much Jew/Israel hate spews out of Britain. Sadly, after it became acceptable to use Israel as the vehicle to disguise the hatred it has increased to a level where it can be heard freely and openly from the British parliament. "Israel" is blamed for every problem in the world. When "the Jews" is substituted all of a sudden it sound far more familiar and unacceptable. This salt-in-the-wound thinly veiled & distinctly British back-door approach has never been lost on anyone. Also finding a handful of self-loathing Jewish liberal "intelligentsia", who are easily seduced by toasts at far-left London cocktail parties, are quite a laughable find. They are paraded around like prized mascots to whitewash the underlying seething now-mainstream British Jew-hate of their promoters.

For Christians such as myself, that understand these matters and support Israel we recognise that this isn't a geo/political issue but a spiritual one. The Jews according to the Bible are God's chosen people and Israel is their land, from time immemorial.. The powers of darkness hate God and therefore hate the Jews. And from the beginning have sought to destroy them. Nothing has changed. The holocaust being an example.The Islamic leadership under the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had a significantrelationship with the German government during the era of the Holocaust.This Pro-Nazi sentiment often resulted in grave consequences against the Jews in Arab countries during the Holocaust.The Germans influenced the Arabs resulting in incitement that led to attacks against Jews in Arab cities during the Holocaust. The Mufti promoted the idea to the Nazis of destroying the Jews before they could escape to Palestine. The Axis powers also persecuted Jews in North Africa during the Holocaust. The Hamas constitution records the same; anihilation of the Jews. Nothing has changed. People like David Ward and all fellow travellers seek to hide behind the argument of human rights for the Palestinians, who in reality are Syrian Arabs ( no such thing as Palestinians ) while choosing to ignore history and the atrocities committed against the Jews by Arabs now and for generations. What happened when Israel pulled out of Gaza? Peace ? No way. Increased attacks on Israelis. There can be no appeasement of terror. I am forced to the conclusion therefore and suggest, that these people, like David Ward, are driven by the same dark powers that I refer to. God bless Israel.

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